Skyward Sword: The Goddess and the Hero
by Moodiness97
Summary: A loose novelization of Skyward Sword, alternating between Link and Zelda's POV.


**Author's Note:** So. This is something I've wanted to do for awhile: a complete novelization of Skyward Sword. But when I say novelization, I mean I'm going to focus on the story, not the gameplay. For example, at least one of the temples is going to be shortened to one room, because describing the trek through a temple doesn't make for good reading. Anyway, this story's going to alternate between Zelda and Link's POV, and also, I included the little prologue at the beginning of the game. It's the only extended passage I took verbatim from the game so far (but I do confess to correcting a few comma mistakes). But because I took it verbatim, I'm going to do something I swore I'd never do and put one of those pointless disclaimers at the beginning of my story.

 _ **DISCLAIMER:**_ Obviously, _The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword_ and all of the intellectual property that goes with it belong to Nintendo, not to me. I am just a poor college student who does not profit from this fanfiction in any way, shape or form, yada yada yada.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this story! It's been fun to write so far, and I'm excited to see where it goes!

* * *

 _The Goddess and the Hero_

 _This is a tale that you humans have passed down through uncounted generations. It tells of a war of unmatched scale and ferocity, the likes of which would never be seen again._

 _One dark, fateful day, the earth cracked wide, and malevolent forces rushed forth from the fissure. They mounted a brutal assault upon the surface people, driving the land into deep despair. They burnt forest to ash, choked the land's sweet springs, and murdered without hesitation._

 _They did all this in their lust to take the ultimate power protected by Her Grace, the goddess. The power she guarded was without equal. Handed down by gods of old, this power gave its holder the means to make any desire a reality. Such was the might of the ultimate power that the old ones placed in the care of the goddess._

 _To prevent this great power from falling into the hands of the evil swarming the lands, the goddess gathered the surviving humans on an outcropping of earth. She sent it skyward, beyond the reach of the demonic hordes, beyond even the clouds._

 _With the humans safe, the goddess joined forces with the land dwellers and fought the evil hordes, sealing them away. At last, peace was restored to the surface._

 _This is a tale that you humans have told for many ages, generation to generation. But there are other legends, long hidden away from memory, that are intertwined with this tale. Now, a new legend bound to this great story stands ready to be revealed._

 _A legend that will be forged by your own hand._

* * *

1

A light breeze had sprung up early this morning, not enough to disrupt the coming ceremony, but enough to make Zelda's hair blow into her face when she tried to practice her piece on the harp. Not that she still needed practice; she'd had the song engrained into the nerves of her fingers for weeks. She could play it without thinking by now. But the repetitive, familiar motions dulled the pang of apprehension residing in her gut.

The ceremony was going to start in less than an hour, and Link still hadn't gotten out of bed. It was absolutely ridiculous. A significant chunk of his future rested on the Wing Ceremony. And he'd met the challenge with an impressive showing of apathy.

For the past few weeks, Zelda had worried about it more than he had, and she'd already won it last year. It had been difficult, but she'd beaten Link, and everyone else, too. While Link was easily a better flyer than she was, he hadn't cared enough, and she'd stolen the win from right under his nose. She hadn't wanted to do that to him, but her own father had been expecting Link to win, and that irritated her. So, she'd gone and showed both of them.

Her father had learned his lesson.

Link, apparently, hadn't.

In fact, when she won, he never even got irritated. When it came up in conversation, he smiled and talked about like she'd beaten him in a game of tag. At first, it was a relief that it mattered so little to him.

But now she was just peeved.

She shouldn't be the one up and awake—her part in the ceremony happened at the very end, anyway—stressing and fretting about wind speed and weather.

She started playing the harp again, on the off chance it managed to calm her. The lyrics of the song rose to her lips of their own accord. "Oh, youth, guided by the goddess, unite earth and sky, bring light to the land…"

She had known the words long before her instructors asked her to participate in the ceremony. They were the creed of every knight in Skyloft, a charge to maintain harmony, to stand for justice, and other platitudes along similar lines. The students at the Knight Academy could recite the words by heart, even if they didn't actually care about them.

Despite this, she was far more nervous about the singing than the playing. Her mastery of the harp was indisputable, but her singing voice? No one had ever had the heart to tell her if it was good or bad or absolutely awful. She'd only practiced the song when she know no one else would hear her, as embarrassed as she was.

And to cap off her misery, she'd also been asked to trade her knight's uniform for the more elaborate, traditional garb of the goddess. "I know it's frivolous," her father had said, patting her on the shoulder, "but it's traditional. You're supposed to embody the spirit of the goddess, after all."

The clothes weren't so bad, she supposed—actually, they were very pretty—but she felt conspicuous walking around Skyloft this morning in an outfit so contrary to her usual tastes. It hadn't taken her long to retreat to the statue of the goddess Hylia on the northernmost isle of the city. She stood now in the presence of the massive statue, perched on a platform overlooking the clouds below.

When she was younger, standing on the edge of one of Skyloft's floating islands like she was now would have terrified her. Looking down at the clouds, seeing them drifting in the wind—an intense vertigo would overtake her and she'd move as far from the edge as she could be. When she saw the sea of white and gray, ever shifting and changing, the ground beneath her feet seemed to move, too.

Fear of the endless plunge just a few feet in any direction never bothered Link, as long as Zelda could remember. Nothing ever bothered Link, actually, but the way he scurried along the edges of the islands, ignoring the pitfalls around every corner, amazed Zelda even now. Some of her earliest memories were of Link's father, a decorated knight when he was alive, snatching Link away from edge of the island after the boy had gotten too close while chasing Zelda's pet remlit.

Even in the face of her irritation, a smile forced its way to her lips as she remembered all the times Link had danced on the precipice of disaster and never known it. Sometimes he could be so clueless.

In the distance, she could a miniscule island, little more than a gray speck floating in the ocean of blue. It was home to a small, quaint building, the Lumpy Pumpkin, whose owner specialized in pumpkin soup, the recipe he used having been perfected by generations of his family. It was where the residents of Skyloft went to relax and unwind when they had a little extra time.

She and Link had gone there together yesterday afternoon in preparation for the Wing Ceremony today. At least, that had been her plan. She'd wanted to have one final strategy meeting, but Link had only lasted a few minutes before getting into an animated discussion with their friend Keet about something—she couldn't even remember what it was—entirely unrelated.

Trying to get Link to focus hadn't worked at all, so she'd finally given in and joined their conversation. Before she knew it, the sun had begun to set, signaling that they'd run out of time. On the way back, Link had smiled and apologized for getting distracted, but she'd brushed him off. She had enjoyed herself, after all. Spending time with Link—just talking with him—had made her far happier than grilling him over advanced flight techniques that he already knew on an instinctual level anyway.

That night, just to humor her—and also perhaps as another apology—Link had suggested that they go somewhere quiet and study together. Underneath a tree at the foot of Hylia's statue, she'd quizzed him for a few minutes before being satisfied. Shoulder to shoulder, they'd sat facing the goddess statue, Zelda hardly able to concentrate for some reason. The night air had been cool, rustling the leaves in the branches in short, playful bursts. Their studying had come to an immediate end when Link noticed a group of fireflies hovering around a nearby bush. He'd shot up in an instant, and before she could react, he was back, his hand balled into a fist, his fingers parted just enough that she could the bright, pulsing glow within.

He'd teased her after that, pretending to let the insect loose in her hair, and, laughing, she'd chased him around, wielding a branch like a club.

Looking back now, it annoyed her that he'd managed to distract so effortlessly.

She'd waited long enough.

Marching to the front of the goddess statue, she approached the pack she'd brought with her this morning. She hadn't brought much: the harp, a canteen of water, and a letter she'd written just in case. Earlier, when she left for the statue and didn't see any signs of Link being up and about, a sinking feeling had come over her. She'd penned a short note in the event that he slept in, which more and more she was beginning to suspect to be the case.

She whistled for her Loftwing, but having previously told the animal it could go where it pleased, it could have been a great distance off. While waiting for it to arrive, she tucked the letter under her arm and began to practice her piece for the ceremony.

Before she had gotten through it once, her Loftwing, a bright sky-blue bird with purple-tipped wings, descended from the sky. Alighting in front of her with the grace of an animal a fraction of its size, it stared at her with huge, glassy eyes that seemed to see her anxiety like a physical veil. Lowering its head to hers, it nudged her with its massive beak in an obvious attempt to comfort her, and she stroked its neck. "I need a favor," she said, holding up the letter. "I need you to deliver this to Link, and be as loud and obnoxious as you can."

It gave her a quizzical look, but then ruffled its feathers, as if it was shrugging. Taking the paper from her, it stretched out its wings, dwarfing her in its shadow, before taking off again. She smiled as she watched it go, chuckling a little to herself.

Link was in for a rude awakening, and by Hylia, he deserved it.

She returned her attention to the harp, preparing to play it again, but she was interrupted.

"Your Grace," someone said from the direction of the goddess statue.

Confused, she turned, but no one was around. She had very distinctly heard someone speak, however. Oblivious but ever-present, the colossal goddess was smiling blankly, staring into space somewhere far beyond Skyloft.

But still, someone had spoken, and their voice had come from the direction of the statue. The voice had sounded feminine, but beyond that, Zelda hadn't recognized it. Frowning, she approached the statue, proceeding to walk all the way around its base. No one was hiding behind, though.

She began to wonder if they had even been speaking to her in particular. Perhaps she'd simply overheard someone else's conversation, carried by the wind. _Unlikely, but technically possible._

What made her doubt it the most was that this wasn't the first time this had happened. In the past few months, she kept hearing voices, and they weren't always the same, but she never could figure out their source. This instance was unique, however. Before now, she'd never actually caught what the voices said.

By this point, she couldn't trust that she'd even heard the voice correctly, but her brain kept repeating the phrase, "Your Grace," over and over again. It was her first clue, her only clue. The simplicity of it disappointed her. She'd hoped that when she finally caught something the voices said, a great revelation would impart itself to her. But nothing. And it was such an odd thing to say. _Your Grace_.

Were they—whoever they were—referring to her? It sounded like some kind of title.

She shook herself. If anyone knew what she was thinking right now, they would have called her insane. Of course, no one knew. Her father and Link were happily oblivious to the voices she'd been hearing. No need to make them worry and question her sanity.

When the voices had first started, she'd wondered if they were all in her head. But the longer it went on—the vague, fluttery whispers, gone before they were really even there—the more she became convinced they weren't.

Last month, curiosity finally got the best of her, and in the middle of the night, she'd sneaked into her father's study and read through the ancient he kept there. As the headmaster of the Knight Academy, he had was in charge of preserving the history of the sky islands. The writings were forbidden to anyone but him, but it was simple to enter his office and rifle through them. The second key to the office was kept in her room, after all. He'd asked her to hang onto it in case he ever lost his copy; it was a sign of how much he trusted his daughter.

Predictably, a wave of guilt washed over her when she betrayed his trust and broke into his study. Trust meant the world to her, and she felt like a hypocrite, but she had no other choice. Besides, what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

She shivered. She could still feel the dust on her fingers from the pages that were old enough to crumble in her hands. Covered in blotchy stains and cobwebs, the writing spoke of nothing particularly helpful to her, and she nearly gave up her search. But then, in one of the ancient histories, she noticed something unconceivable. Unobtrusively, the text mentioned the _surface_ , a land beneath the clouds.

Once she discovered that, she'd abandoned her search for anything else. According to the writings, which didn't say much, the surface contained forests and mountains, and had oceans of water, not clouds. Before long, she'd nearly wasted an hour reading about, far longer than she'd ever intended to spend in her father's study. Putting the books away exactly as she found them, she left, still not entirely believing what she'd found.

A surface… the very idea of it changed everything. Supposedly, no one in Skyloft knew what lay beneath the cloud barrier because the Loftwings refused to fly through it. Nobody understood why. But her father had to know. He'd had years to go over the manuscripts; she'd had an hour.

Afterwards, it became nearly impossible not to crack and reveal everything to him. But if she did that, and it all came out, Link might start to worry about her, and the last thing he needed was another distraction. So she kept quiet. Perhaps when today was just a memory, she would speak to her father about what had happened. He'd be disappointed with her, not just for reading the texts, but also for not telling him about the voices sooner.

Her gut twisted a little, and for a moment she closed her eyes and just breathed. _Get it together, Zelda. Focus_.

Today was Link's day; she could worry about her own problems tomorrow. Now, she had Link's problems to deal with. Or, rather, Link _was_ the problem she had to deal with.

 _I sure hope he's terrified out of his mind when he wakes up_. Someone else needed to feel on edge, for once.

As if just to spite her, the wind kicked up and tossed her hair straight into her face.

She sighed, forcing herself to smile and resume practicing the harp.

 _It's going to be one of_ those _days, isn't_ _it?  
_

* * *

 **Author's Notes #2:** So. I usually try to write longer chapters, but this was just the introduction, and it actually ended up much longer than I thought it was going to be. It was a little annoying because I was painfully aware of how much I was telling, not showing, but it was still fun to write. Also, totally unrelated, but I finally figured out how to do the horizontal line divider thing. AND IT'S SO DANG USEFUL.

Anyway, I'm not sure if my version of Zelda is very likable, but I wanted to convey a sort bossy, high strung, but happy and self-sacrificing sort of person, but I'm... not sure how it turned out.


End file.
